This has been brought up before, but in a far more broad post. I'd like to narrow down the focus to just these two terms.

In the genre descriptions, both are described as being used to indicate that material in the manga may be inappropriate for readers either not considered adult or not 17+ (huge difference). Both give the reasons of depictions of graphic violence, sexuality, and nudity. They're too similar...

To clear up this issue, I propose that one term, mature, be used for descriptions of graphic violence, and the other, adult, be used for graphic depictions of sexuality. This has already occurred in labeling of series, for the most part, but this should still be changed in the descriptions under genre.



As an aside, the difference between hentai and adult occurs at the point the sexuality becomes pornography. That is, the point that the sex within the manga is depicted with the purpose of sexually gratifying the reader (extended graphical scenes of sexuality that serve no purpose but as wank material).

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i like this idea

that would actually be a good idea :]
easier to recognize which one's which.

What would happen to a series like Emma, though? It has nude scenes of women, but not sex. It's not adult, but mature.

Also, would one sex scene push a manga into the adult camp? If not, how frequent/explicit would the sex have to be? And where would smut fit into all of this?

I agree that the current labels aren't clear or consistently applied, but I think they work for the most part...

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Avatar by tassyn.livejournal.com

Reading: Kingdom, Sangokushi, Historie

Note that Emma already doesn't appear as either a mature series or an adult series. A sex scene doesn't usually push something into the adult camp anyway, because, if a manga doesn't deal with sex frequently, it won't be graphic. Smut, though containing sexual content, is also not very graphic.

These labels are already used this way. They have already been defined as such within the genres (see the link on the right side of MU). They just overlap, and I think this would be a smooth manner to differentiate the two that is for the most part already in effect.

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I'm looking at the series page, and Emma is labeled mature.

Another troublesome series I can think of off the top of my head is Hohzuki Island. There, the nudity is clearly meant to titillate, but "adult" would be overkill. Also, some of the nudity takes place in the context of attempted child rape, which I consider more as graphic violence than graphic sex.

I also believe there is a scene of a little girl masturbating in Kodomo no Jikan. Some kind of warning label is warranted, but ecchi and adult are not quite it.

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Avatar by tassyn.livejournal.com

Reading: Kingdom, Sangokushi, Historie

Don't you just hate it when people change things while you're talking about them? Anyway, it seems that Emma is already mislabeled, as the official description of mature as outlined by this site doesn't apply.


I think this is covered quite easily. Nudity meant only to titillate? Clearly ecchi. You've already said that you consider child rape graphic violence, so that would be mature. And, of course, there's no reason a series can't have BOTH tags, if it contains both.


Did I say that adult would be used for sex? I thought I said graphic sexual content, or graphic sexuality. This clearly applies here.

And Odette, I think you might want to read the descriptions for adult and mature in the Genres page. You seem to have a misconception about their current use.

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You also said earlier: "A sex scene doesn't usually push something into the adult camp anyway, because, if a manga doesn't deal with sex frequently, it won't be graphic."

Kodomo no Jikan is not a child sex manga.



What I was questioning was not their current usage but the new usage you proposed.

The current definitions state that "adult" refers to prolonged graphic sex scenes, while "mature" can include series that have non-frequent but explicit sexuality. That makes sense to me.

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Avatar by tassyn.livejournal.com

Reading: Kingdom, Sangokushi, Historie

The manga frequently talks about the subject in an explicit manner. With graphic representations. Or were you not paying attention to that? For something to be sexual, it doesn't have to be sex.


"mature" states nothing about the explicit sex being non-frequent, brief, or in anyway less graphic than "adult" sex.

Anyway, the two terms clearly overlap and have ambiguity of meaning, being used to deal with any type of questionable content. My change will add precision to the meaning by having each deal with a certain type of questionable content that was earlier shared by both with little discernible difference.

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Maybe we need someone else who has read KnJ to weigh in, but what you call "graphic" seems no more explicit than what is often found in mangas currently labeled ecchi.



MU's definition of mature omits the word "prolonged," so if you compare it to MU's definition of adult, you can infer that the difference between adult and mature is the length of the sexual scenes. To me at least, this is a meaningful difference because short scenes of sexuality tend to add realism, while prolonged scenes tend to be fanservice/quasi-porn.

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Avatar by tassyn.livejournal.com

Reading: Kingdom, Sangokushi, Historie

I follow it, and as a whole, the series has some mature themes in it, sometimes even kinda dark, so even if the scene mentioned is one of maybe, two, it could still be considered graphic.

Still... i'd like to know the diference between the term adult and mature?. I believe we are using adult right now.

Based in the definition of the word.
a. Suitable or intended for adults: mature subject matter

if something is suitable or intented for adults... if we allready use adult ... it not enough?


http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=1506 <-- adult/mature
http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=4396 <-- adult/mature (to me this is totaly porn tho)
http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=41943 <-- lol this is adult and hentai



Last edited by aagcnet at 5:22 pm, May 5 2009

to OP:
Agreed. They're used too interchangeably right now. They are listed as two separate genres (as they should be), so the difference between them should be more distinct. Your definition sounds reasonable to me, with "mature" being more concerning violence and "adult" being more concerning sexual stuff. (And, of course, a given manga could be labeled both adult and mature, if necessary.)


Last edited by lynira at 10:28 am, Oct 9 2011

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